happy first contact day! Thought I would re-cap Solkar’s thought process during this momentous historical moment since vulcans kiss with their hands. 

what I love about this is that, canonically, this handshake actually forms a lifelong bond between Solkar and Cochrane— not a strong one like a marriage or a betrothal, but a sort of vague mental link. The understanding that passes between them in this moment is a personal one, and the two remained very close throughout the rest of their lives. You ever meet someone and go “aha! There you are!” ? Because that’s what happened between these two. Very nice 🤧😭

Context: Satine’s coronation to become Duchess of Mandalore, right after the Year On The Run.

I wanted her coronation dress to be very wedding-dress-like, as she’s in many ways marrying herself to Mandalore and her new duties. And of course, for extra angst, Obi-Wan is the one walking her out and handing her off. But it’s also not Obitine without some cute banter, so here you go (:

@satineweek Day One: JEWEL

For this promt I just HAD to draw Satine in the viral jeweled armor dress…

i made this comic to share some of my thoughts on trans day of visibility!! idk if its very eloquent but gimme a break ive just been moving and starting a new job and joining the circus and

art by @BottlngSunshine

Is it about butchering black girls’ hair to keep white people comfortable? Is it about a woman visiting the same violence on her daughter as was done to her by her mother a generation prior? Is this girl just too… “different” to go into the world unaltered? Does she need to be toned down so she can succeed? Does she need to be defenseless before she is deemed safe by powerful people who would do her harm if given half a reason? Is one of those people holding those scissors?

[I.D. digital art of a young girl medusa sitting in a chair in a kitchen, crying as a woman cuts the heads off of medusa’s snakes. the woman’s head is out of frame, but her blonde hair is visible as she pulls three snakes taught, beginning to chop them with scissors as blood spurts. four snakes have been cut already, their remains lying dead on the floor as the rest of the snakes, all sporting pink bows around their necks, cower in fear. the majority of the illustration has been colored in black and deep saturated yellows and oranges, while medusa’s skin and hair are green. her pinafore has the same color palette as the background. her knees are also scuffed, bruised with orange and one of them bandaged. her cut strands of snake hair are not bandaged and continue to bleed. end I.D.]

There’s a sequel!

“Becoming Me.” by BottlingSunshine

Image ID: A digital illustration of a young Medusa woman braiding her green snakes in front of a mirror and while her eyes are covered with a sleep mask. The mirror is centered in the drawing and surrounded by the orange-pink background. She is wearing a white sleep mask with “closed eyes” on it and a black top with white lacey ruffles at the collar and cuffs. Two snake heads are seen in the mirror while the rest are out of view. The front of the vanity holding the mirror is littered with various dolls and stuffed animals with their eyes crossed out, candy, an image of eyes in a round frame that are also crossed out, nail polish in pink and black, ribbons, and a friendship bracelet plus polaroids. The wall above the vanity is pink and near-white striped and covered in small polaroids or photos taped on the wall and various portraits in yellow frames. The yellow frames show the woman as a young girl holding her arms anxiously with her head cut off from view, covering her face, or simply have dark static backgrounds. There is a sharpie on the lower shelf of the vanity. End iD

From the artist, re: the second image.

Trans Clone Week 2024 Prompts!

Prompts are here! We have three prompts, a quote prompt, an image prompt and a battalion prompt for the first 6 days! Choose one, choose them all! Day 7 is a free day, anything you like or a prompt you couldn't decide between for an earlier day.

Day 1- July 14th:

Kamino Guard-

-Cadets

-Gender Affirming Technology

-Snuggling

-"For my part, I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream." Vincent Van Goh

('Becoming' banner by Jasper Alexander- https://www.tumblr.com/sunshineprincejeremyknox/744761034799202304?source=share)

Day 2- July 15th:

212th-

-Trans Commander

-Gender Affirming Dirty Talk

-Intimacy

-"Will I be something? Am I something? And the answer comes: You already are. You always were. And you still have time to be." Anis Mojgani, from “Here I Am”, Songs from Under the River: A Collection of Poetry

(A State of Mind by Robert W. Chambers- https://images.app.goo.gl/7BF1f723M5GKoGJDA)

Day 3- July 16th:

501st-

-Clone Gender Expression vs Other's Expectations

-Vod'e Cultural Gender Markers

-Tattoos

-"God has given you one face, and you make yourself another." - Shakespeare

(Barbie and Ken- https://images.app.goo.gl/4LEZ424od96RffeY7)

Day 4- July 17th:

104th-

-During Wartime

-Trans4Trans

-Hair Braiding

-"Invigorated by the possibility of reinventing my own body. The meaning was mine, as long as I was with those who had the vision and vocabulary to understand my creation." -Nick Krieger

(https://www.tumblr.com/sunshineprincejeremyknox/722124686135361536?source=share)

Day 5-July 18th:

Coruscant Guard-

-A Senator/Natborn Finds Out

-Internalized Transphobia

-Nightclubs(79's)

-"Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known." -Chuck Palahniuk

(https://www.tumblr.com/sunshineprincejeremyknox/742328449316880384?source=share)

Day 6- July 19th:

Original Units-

-After the War

-Gender Euphoria

-Community

-“Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.” -Margaret Mead

(https://www.tumblr.com/sunshineprincejeremyknox/722349367302012929?source=share)

Day 7-July 20th:

Free Day!! Create any and everything for your favorite clones!

I’ve already talked about a Leverage crossover where the Hargreeves are conmen but I’m. losing it thinking about. a Leverage AU where the Leverage team sees these kids on tv, and they just go.  oh shit, that’s just fucking wrong.  (I know the timelines don’t match up but let’s pretend the umbrella kids were born a little later, or that Leverage takes place a little earlier, or something like that.  I don’t know.)

But these fucking umbrella kids show up on TV, and at first none of them are paying much attention. Not right away.  They’re busy running cons, and none of them except Hardison watch TV for fun very often.

So they’ve all heard bits and pieces about this Umbrella thing, and aren’t quite sure what to make of it.  Superhumans, huh? Eliot mutters at one point. Whatever. Our lives are already so goddamn weird.

But eventually they catch a broadcast while they’re home in between cases.  it’s playing in the background while they’re enjoying a meal together at the brewery.

The Umbrella Academy saves the day yet again! the broadcaster declares cheerily. We go now to a statement at the Louvre from their leader, Sir Reginald Hargreeves.

It’s just novel enough to catch their attention–being who they are, they all perk up at the word Louvre–and it gets them half-watching as they chat over breakfast.

It’s Parker that sees it first.  She’s Parker, so what catches her attention is actually not the fact that one of them is covered in blood, nor is it the fact that their father is calling them by numbers instead of names.  It’s the way that they stand, tense and upright.  It’s the way that the one covered in blood is trembling minutely, so fine that it’s almost imperceptible. But she notices. And she notices the way that the one to the bloodied boy’s left–the fifth one in line–leans over ever-so-subtly when their father is looking away. Whispers something with the barest movement of his lips. And then, after a moment of hesitation, he links hands with his shaking brother, twining their fingers together.  Parker knows that whisper, knows what this is. She used to do that with her brother.  Used to hold Nick’s hand, just like that, when their fosters were scaring him, trying to provide comfort even despite the fear of being caught.

It’s not long before the others follow her gaze. She’s stopped engaging in the conversation entirely, is just staring at the television with a death glare, nose wrinkled.

“Parker, baby,” Hardison says.  “That’s your angry face.”

“I’m angry,” she says, and doesn’t elaborate.

“Got it,” Hardison takes it in stride, as he always does.

Eliot’s frowning at the TV.  Unlike Parker, his eye does jump to the most obvious thing first.  To the boy, no older than eleven or twelve probably, drenched head to toe with blood.  There’s no rips in his clothing; Eliot’s pretty sure the blood isn’t his. He’s standing up straight, but his shoulders are slightly hunched.  Like he’s injured.  Broken ribs, maybe?  And he’s been taught to hide them too. He’s also not the only one with that too-stiff posture. These kids aren’t standing up straight. They’re standing at attention.  Number One, their father calls one of them, and what are those? Fucking callsigns?  

Sophie and Nate are watching too.  Their faces are carefully blank.  They aren’t happy, Parker’s pretty sure, but they’re trying not to react.

“What the hell?” Hardison says slowly.  He’s the last one to catch on, though only by a very narrow margin.  He lacks Sophie and Nate’s cynicism, and the years of personal experience Parker and Eliot have, but he’s still too smart to not figure it out almost immediately.  And he is first one to abandon the stunned stillness that’s fallen over the rest of them, pulling his laptop out of his bag, already quickly tapping away at the keys.

“This ain’t right,” Eliot says, voice a growl in his chest.  “This is–this is–it’s televised child abuse.”

Sophie makes a quiet noise of agreement then. “It is,” she says, quietly disgusted. “Those poor children.”

Nate is still staring at the screen, lips pressed flat.

“This Reginald guy looks rich,” Parker says.  Then: “Can we kill him?”

Eliot chokes on his drink.

“How is this even legal?” Sophie asks.  She sounds curious, though not particularly surprised by the grievous violation of child protection laws before her. “It’s so…blatant.”

“Sir Reginald Hargreeves,” Hardison says, no longer typing.  “He is–oh shit.” And the typing resumes, faster and a little more panicked than before.

“Hardison?” Nate prods after a moment, giving Hardison a sidelong glance.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s all good,” Hardison says.  “The INTERPOL files on this guy are locked up tight though.  Almost tripped their security system there.  I didn’t, of course, but–”

“You couldn’t get in?” Eliot says, smirking.

“Yet,” Hardison says.  “Dammit, man, it’s been less than five minutes.  Give me a couple hours and that thing is mincemeat.  Metaphorically speaking, of course.  But I do see what’s going on here and,” he clicks his tongue, shaking his head in disappointment.  “Y’all, this is hinky.”

“Yes, I think we got that,” Nate says.  The corner of his lip twitches up.

“Yeah, yeah,” Hardison says.  “This guy has got friends everywhere.  No one knows how he got the kids, but it looks like he technically bought them–”

“He what?” Sophie sounds like she’s been suckerpunched.  Parker can’t think of the last time she heard Sophie sound so shocked.

“Oh yeah.  You think that’s bad?  The numbers aren’t code names  The numbers are their name names.  Like, legally.  I just found an article that said he ordered them by how useful he thinks they are, but judging by the adoption papers it was actually in the order he, uh,” Hardison coughs, “acquired them.”

Eliot is swaying where he stands.  “Common tactic.  He’s pitting them against one another so they’ll be easier to control.  It undermines the self worth of the ones lower on the scale and makes the ones that are higher up feel obligated to do what he wants.  Son of a bitch.”

“…And it looks like he leveraged their powers as excuse to gain exemptions from child protection laws,” Hardison continues like he hasn’t been interrupted.  “Claimed their abilities meant they don’t need the same safeguards.”

“That’s bullshit!” Eliot sounds thunderous.

“I know, buddy,” Hardison reaches over blindly, waving his hand around vaguely until he finds Eliot’s shoulder.  He gives it a comforting squeeze.  “I didn’t write it.”

Eliot heaves in a shuddering breath.  “That’s just–”

“Evil,” Sophie finishes.  

“I’m inclined to agree,” Nate says.  He’s not watching the TV anymore.  He’s staring off into the middle distance, arms crossed over his chest.

“Oh!” Parker perks up.  All the grief and distress that had been brewing on her face vanishes like storm clouds parting for the sun.  “Nate! Nate, are you scheming?  You look like you’re scheming.”

Nate makes a noncommittal grunt.  “It would be dangerous.”

“They’re in danger,” Sophie says softly, jerking her head in the television’s direction.

Eliot’s long-since gotten to his feet.  He’s pacing, and that’s how Parker knows he’s furious.  When Eliot is too angry to stand it, he has to move, has to find some way to handle the rage roiling under his skin.  Usually he cooks, chopping vegetables with furious aplomb.  And when he can’t cook, he paces.  

“They’re fucking child soldiers,” he says.  “I can’t–” he cuts himself off with a furious shake of the head.  I can’t believe, he was about to say, Parker thinks, but he had to stop because that’s not true.  Eliot knows better than anyone what the government–what the world does to people they find useful, whether its skill or power that makes them so.

“Y’all are behind,” Hardison says in sing-song.  “I’m already trying to burn this motherfucker down.”

“Hardison, do not tip our hand,” Nate says, snapping into his leader-voice automatically.  Parker grins.  He’s already got a plan, then.  She knew all that reluctance was just for show.  Sophie laughs, as clear and bright as the ringing of a bell, and even Eliot perks up.  

Hardison grumbles, closing his laptop and stuffing it back in his messenger bag.  

Nate is grinning a little too, though it’s that angry smile he gets sometimes when Parker knows he’s thinking about hurting bad people.  She understands.  She’s wearing hers too right now.  Nate glances them all over, and for all the malice dripping off the knife’s edge of that smile, his eyes are soft.  Maybe even a little proud.

“Fine. Fine. You guys win,” Nate says, lifting his hands in defeat.  He’s putting on a show of being beleaguered, but Parker can hear the sparking anger in his voice, and oh, how could she have forgotten?  Sophie is so gently righteous, Hardison so achingly distressed, and Eliot so full of fire and fury that she almost didn’t notice Nate’s seething wrath, nearly forgot that Nate looks at every injured child in need of help and thinks of Sam.  “Everyone, get your things.  Hardison, get us some plane tickets.  Let’s go steal some children.”

“Okay, okay.  I ain’t complaining cause, like, fuck that guy,” Hardison says, slinging his bag over his shoulder.  “But stealing children?  Could you have made us sound anymore like kidnappers?”

“Hardison!”

“I’m just saying.”

HELL YEAH THIS IS EXCELLENT

Give me Parker teaching Five how to pick a safe.

Give me Harrison teaching Luther and Ben how to code.

Give me Sophie teaching Klaus and Allison how to act (aka lie really good.)

Give me Elliot teaching Vanya and Diego how to redirect their anger and bitterness (once Vanya is off her meds of course.)

Can you even imagine when they find out about Vanya?

Parker is the one to figure it out.  Parker, who was always a few degrees to the left of the rest of the world, who encountered her share of foster parents who thought the things that made her who she was could be cured, or at least blunted, by medication.  They all know what withdrawal looks like, but it’s Parker who sees the way Vanya’s eyes glaze over and figures out that what she’s withdrawing from is a serotonin inhibitor, just…a really strong one that had plenty of time to build up in the girl’s system.

She tells Hardison that something’s wrong with Vanya, concerned about the apparent strength of the medication someone was giving to a child, and inside of a day, Vanya is experiencing the joys of a blood draw, the glories of orange juice and a cookie and a nap while analysis is performed.

When the results come back, everyone gets very quiet.  The children are already legally theirs; even Hargreeves doesn’t have the resources to pay lawyers faster than Hardison’s hands on a keyboard.  But now Hargreeves is off-limits, at least until Vanya is old enough and detoxed enough to rationally answer the most important question in the world:

Do you want us to kill him?  Or do you want to do it yourself?

The next day, Klaus comes up to the team.  Out of all seven, he’s the one who doesn’t seem much better after leaving Hargreaves’ “care.“

“Uh, you know that medicine Dad was giving Vanya to make her powers go away?”

“It didn’t exactly make her powers go away,” said Sophie. “But yes, why do you ask?”

Klaus looks up, shaking like a leaf and asks, “Can I have some?”

The team had not asked what Klaus’ powers were.  Now the story comes out.  Klaus has got an appointment with a child psychiatrist the next day (and not just to design his med regimen—Hargreaves locked him in the catacombs how many times?!) The team makes sure the kids know: 1) Klaus is on meds because he wants them. 2) Klaus is on a normal regimen. His dose is much, much smaller than Vanya’s because the point is to make him feel better and part of that is regular checkups to make changes. 3) Vanya’s powers aren’t an illness; Klaus’ are, at least as far as being constantly accosted by dead grownups screaming at you translates to the DSM-V.

Luthor, who may never stop being Number One asks, “But what about our responsibility to help others?  Only Four can talk to spirits.”

Nate answers, “The dead can take care of themselves.  We help each other while we’re still here.” He doesn’t let his eyes turn to his picture of Sam.

This AU makes me soft for the idea of Diego finally feeling like he is the hero he desperately wants to be. Hargreaves drilled into him that he was never good enough. Never able to truly save anyone. He pitted Diego against his siblings, making him feel that to be good enough, he had to be able to accomplish things on his own but then saying it was impossible for someone like him. Adult Diego is always striving for recognition because he can never give it to himself.

But this time, the Leverage team has him. They spend time with him, talk to him, decide to bring in a counselor for each of the kids to work through their trauma. The kids get a say in if they want counseling, how often it happens, do they want to go in together or alone, share a counselor or have a private one, etc.

And Diego watches what they do for their clients. He sees the tears of frustration and grief turn into ones of relief and happiness after a job well done. He learns that being a hero doesn’t mean taking down the bad guy, that’s just icing on the cake. Being a hero is actually giving people their lives back, protecting them from the hidden evils of the world. And he sees how working as a team makes them each better as people. How relying on each other only makes them more capable.

And so he starts to change too. Asks Ben to join him for a counseling session, which up until then he always did alone (refused to even talk the first 3 sessions even though he agreed to go). Slowly he opens up to his siblings until he finally feels comfortable enough to ask Luther to join him for counseling too. He tells Luther how jealous he was of not being #1, how he felt he had to beat Luther to be seen as good enough. He tells him he was wrong and yet he still feels that way sometimes, but he’s working on it and he hopes Luther will work on it with him.

When they grow up, it’s actually Diego who decides which cases they take. Five is the mastermind but Diego has the heart for it. He brings a sibling with him to each client meeting and he never feels happier than when he can provide them with even just a moment of peace and reassurance that the world isn’t as bad as it seems.

It is really important to me that all of you learn about Al Bean, astronaut on Apollo 12 and the fourth man to walk on the moon, who after 20 years in the US Navy and 18 years with NASA during which he spent 69 days in space and more than 10 hours doing EVAs on the moon , retired to become a painter.

He is my favorite astronaut for any number of reasons, but he’s also one of my favorite visual artists.

Like, look at this stuff????

It’s all so expressive and textured and colorful! He literally painted his own experience on the moon! And that's just really fucking cool to me!

Just look at this! This is one of my absolute favorite emotions of all time. Is Anyone Out There? is like the ultimate reaction image. Any time I have an existential crisis, this is how I picture myself.

And then there's this one:

The Fantasy

For all of the six Apollo missions to land on the moon, there was no spare time. Every second of their time on the surface was budgeted to perfection: sleeping, eating, putting on the suits, entering and exiting the LEM, rock collection, setting up longterm experiments to transmit data back to Earth, everything. These timetables usually got screwed over by something, but for the most part the astronauts stuck to them.

The crew of Apollo 12 (Pete Conrad, Al Bean, and Dick Gordon) had other plans. Conrad and Bean had snuck a small camera with a timer into the LEM to take a couple pictures together on the moon throughout the mission. They had hidden the key for the timer in one of the rock collection bags, with the idea being to grab the key soon after landing, take some fun photos here and there, and then sneak the camera back to Earth to develop them. They had practiced where they would hide the key and how to get it out from under the collected rocks back on Earth dozens of times.

But when they got to the moon, the key was nowhere to be found. Al Bean spent precious time digging through the collection bags before he called it off. The camera had been pushing their luck anyways, he couldn't afford to spend anymore time not on the mission objectives. Conrad and Bean continued the mission as per the NASA plan while Dick Gordon orbited overhead.

Fast forward to the very end of the mission. Bean and Conrad are doing last checks of the LEM before they enter for the last time and depart from the moon. As Bean is stowing one of the collection bags, the camera key falls out. The unofficially planned photo time has come and gone, and he tosses the key over his shoulder to rest forever on the surface of the moon.

This painting, The Fantasy, is that moment. There have never been three people on the moon at the same time, there was never an unofficial photo shoot on the moon, this picture could never have happened.

"The most experienced astronaut was designated commander, in charge of all aspects of the mission, including flying the lunar module. Prudent thinking suggested that the next-most-experienced crew member be assigned to take care of the command module, since it was our only way back home. Pete had flown two Gemini flights, the second with Dick as his crewmate. This left the least experienced - me - to accompany the commander on the lunar surface.

"I was the rookie. I had not flown at all; yet I got the prize assignment. But not once during the three years of training which preceded our mission did Dick say that it wasn't fair and that he wished he could walk on the moon, too. I do not have his unwavering discipline or strength of character.

"We often fantasized about Dick's joining us on the moon but we never found a way. In my paintings, though, I can have it my way. Now, at last, our best friend has come the last sixty miles." - Al Bean, about The Fantasy.

There’s also Alexei Leonov, writer and artist and first person to conduct a spacewalk!

This is his art.

You can't forget this, the first art made in space.

March 1965, Alexei Leonov made this drawing only moments after narrowly surviving the very first space walk.

What I think is so fascinating is how clearly you can see the connection between that drawing and his later painting which is right above it.

ngl I'm gonna need this site to stop right the fuck now with whatever rising aphobia has decided to suddenly skyrocket in the last month of 2023

you're not funny when you say sex is what makes someone more valuable or more mature you're not cool when you go "God I wanna be a little aphobic rn" you're not original when you make sweeping dickish statements about aspec people and as a trans bisexual person who the aspec community helped tremendously and continues to help, i hate you

the aspec community taught me:

meanwhile, aphobic people have time and time again said shit like:

so. I'm gonna stick with the aspecs, actually. thanks.

There's a lot of posts out there reminding people that they don't have to respond to every stupid post they see but I feel like it's worth saying that you also don't have to finish reading the post once you've realized it's stupid. Easily one of my favorite things about the internet is the ability to get like two sentences into a post and go "actually I think you're wrong" and then just stop reading.

literally no better feeling than blurting out some loud dumbass joke with your buddies and hearing a total stranger ugly-snort-laugh as they walk past bc their own laughter caught them by surprise. find joy and connection in the spontaneity of strangers you son of a bitch. i fucking got your ass

This is what it's like when I say the dumbest things imaginable to my wife or partner in the checkout lines to see if the cashier will crack a smile. A little human connection between the drudgery.

A few years ago when my little sister was maybe ten or so we went to this like, novelty/antiques store which had an impressive amount of really bad taxidermy. We were sort of doing our own things and I was across the room from her so when she spots this horrible fish she has to run over and yell “ come see the ugliest taxidermied old fish I’ve ever seen “ at me. Without even thinking I just said “you’re the ugliest taxidermied old fish I’ve ever seen.” Which got a snort from an old man across the room. Anyways a few minutes later my stepmom came in and my sister said the same thing to her, and without missing a beat my stepmom deadpans “your father’s the ugliest taxidermied old fish I’ve ever seen”. The old guy absolutely LOST it

Hey, gang, this isn't just for creators to sign. There's an option for, "I consume adult content, and I'm sick of this shit."

Thing is, I'm not just anti-fatphobia as in "I don't want people to be mean to fat people"

I am pro fat liberation as in "I want to dismantle the systemic biases against fat people and the diet culture and medical industrial complex that feeds into the very real systemic oppression that fat people face"

I don't see fatphobia as a mere interpersonal issue where if you are being nice to fat people or saying things in a polite way to them you're automatically free of fatphobia. I see it as essential to challenge every bit of diet culture myth that we might encounter and break the unscientific ideas of "health" as defines by weight, fat, calories, bmi, and other nonsense. I see it as essential to view fatphobia as the political issue it is and take it seriously as such, and to unlearn and help others unlearn oppressive baseless ideas we have assumed to be true and natural.

And let's also break the unethical ideas of 'healthy' as virtuous, defining your value, something in your control, etc.

A hand-colored photo from 1935 to 1940 of a group of gay men, taken in jail, after they had been arrested for “public indecency,” in Mexico City. I’m amazed by the attitude of some of these men, posing defiantly and glamorously in such adverse conditions.

while it might seem the case that being an independent artist frees you of having a boss you hate, this always ignores the fact that anyone doing art becomes intimately aware of how much room there is in your hollowed out skeleton to hate payment processors

at every level, the payment industry has one of the world's simplest and most profitable jobs: take a cut off of someone else's money in exchange for delivering it to them

now imagine the most grotesque abuse of executive power that could come with someone realising they, by holding this money for any period of time, can actively shape culture before it reaches the masses. understand this is entirely normalised and legal